'Dairy movement shows sensible way to growth'

The success of dairy co-operatives in Gujarat has provided a sensible 'third way', a better way from the worn out track of state bureaucracies and private corporations," said Syeda Hameed, member, Planning Commission, addressing the 24th convocation of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (Irma) on Friday.

Hameed stated that it is now for the members of the Planning Commission, to consider this success story and if required, even take tough decisions, especially in the agriculture sector.

Speaking on the subject of 'Living and Making a Living in Rural India', Hameed said that the acute distress of the rural poor in the agricultural economy in the recent past, occasionally taking the form of suicides by farmers, is a symptom of the deep seated malady of exploitative social relations.

She also stressed on the need for equal rights to women in ownership of assets such as houses and land.

Earlier, in his speech, Varghese Kurien, chairman of Irma said, "Our experience so far suggests that the key to real development lies in enabling people to get the instruments of development in their own hands. Amul has shown the way to the rural people what they could achieve through self governed organisations."

Acting director of Irma, L K Vaswani, said that all the students of the 2003-05 batch have been placed with Irma's designated organisations and by and large, the students have been absorbed in co-operatives, NGOs, agriculture sector, including agricultural banking and development arms of the state government.

PGP degrees awarded

Around 65 students of the post graduate programme in rural management and four students of the fellow programme in rural management (FRPM), were awarded degrees at the 24th convocation of Irma, on Friday.